Mistletoe Magic

Chapter Twelve

Luc left the Billinghurst town house and walked through the night, deep in his own thoughts as to what he should now do.

Lord, what might have happened had he stayed? He would have kissed her probably, kissed her well and good, and be damned with the whole effort of crying off.

‘God help me.’ The strain of it all made him breathe out heavily as he turned into a darkened alley affording a quick way back to his rooms.

Would Lillian have slapped his face and demanded an apology?

He could not risk it. Not yet. Not before she had had a chance to know his character and make her own choice as to whether she might want something more.

He swore again. He had always been a man who had carefully planned his life and made certain that the framework of his next moves were in place before he ventured on.

But here…he did not know what had just happened. How had he lost control so badly that he would risk her reputation on a whim?

In retrospect the full stupidity and consequences of his actions were blatantly obvious.

Lillian had not looked happy. She had not caught at his hand to hold him back, glancing instead towards the others in the room, towards her fiancé and her father, as her eyes had filled with tears.

How could he have got the whole thing so very, very wrong? Why the hell had he risked it all, anyway? Anger began to build. He was a colonial stranger with little to recommend him and a woman who sat at the very pinnacle of a society making much of material possessions would hardly welcome his advances in such a very public place.

‘If you kiss me here, I shall be ruined.’ Had she not said that to him as she had drawn back? Ruined by his reputation, ruined by his lack of place here, ruined by the fact that he had never truly fitted in anywhere save the wilds of Virginia with its hard honest labour and its miles of empty space.

Lord, he had lost one wife to the arms of another man because he had never understood just exactly what it meant to be married. Commitment. To stay in one place. Time. To nurture a relationship and sustain it even in the hours when nothing was easy. The example of his own parents’ marriage was hardly one to follow and his uncle had never taken a wife at all.

He had never understood the truth of what it was that made people stay together through thick and thin, through the good times and the bad. Indeed, incomprehension was still the overriding emotion that remained from the five years of his marriage.

A noise made him turn and three men dressed in black stood behind him. His arm shot out to connect with the face of the first one, but it was too late. A heavy wooden baton hit him on the temple and he crumpled, any strength in his body leached into weakness.

As he fell he noticed a carriage waiting at the end of the alley, and he knew it to be the Davenport conveyance. For a second he was heartened that perhaps they were here to save him, but his hopes were dashed as a heavy canvas sack was placed over his head.

‘The woman said to take him to the docks and that a man would meet us there.’

The woman?

She?

Lillian?

As the dizzy spinning unreality thickened he welcomed the dark whirl of nothingness, for it took away the bursting pain in his head.

Lucas Clairmont did not come as Lillian thought that he would. He did not come the first morning or the second and now it was all of five days past and every effort her father had made to find him had been fruitless. A man who had walked from the ballroom and out into the world, leaving all that was broken behind him.

He was not in his rooms in London and neither Lord Hawkhurst nor the St Auburns had any idea as to where he had gone. She knew because her father had spent the hour before dinner in her room explaining every ineffective endeavour he had made in locating the American.

‘It is my fault all this has happened,’ he said solemnly, running his fingers through what little was left of his hair. ‘I pushed you into something untenable and your mind has lost its way.’

This melodramatic outburst was the first thing that had made Lillian smile since they had left the Billinghurst ball.

‘I think it is more likely my reputation that is lost, Father.’

Ernest Davenport stood, the weight of the world so plainly on his shoulders and the heavy lines on his face etched in worry.

‘I don’t think Wilcox-Rice will forgive you. Even his sister is making her views about your transience well known.’

‘I did not wish to hurt them.’

‘But you did.’

No careful denial to make her feel better. She imagined the Wilcox-Rice family’s perception of her with a grimace.

‘And the worst of it is that you did it all for nothing. I do not now know, daughter, that you will ever be married. I do not think that avenue of action is open to you after this.’

‘But you will support me…’ Fear snaked into the empty sound of her voice.

‘Jean says that I should not. She says that you are very like your mother and that your lustful nature has been revealed.’

‘No. That’s not true, Father.’

‘Everyone is speaking of us. Everyone is remembering Rebecca in a way that I had thought forgotten. We are now universally pitied, daughter. A family cursed in relationships and fallen from a lofty height.’

‘All for a kiss on the back of my hand?’

‘Ah, much more than that, I think. At least here in this room between us I would appreciate it if you did not lie.’

She remained silent and he inclined his head in thanks, honesty a slight panacea against all that had been lost.

‘I think a sojourn in the north might be in order.’

‘To Fairley Manor?’ The same place as her mother had been banished to.

Her father’s face crumpled and he drew his hands up to cover the grief that he did not wish her to see, and in that one gesture Lillian realised indeed the awful extent of her ruination and the folly of it.

‘If you could find Lucas Clairmont, I am certain-’

Ernest dropped his hands and let irritation fly. ‘Certain of what? Certain that he will marry you? Certain that this will be forgotten? Certain that society will forgive the lapse in judgement of someone whom they looked up to as an example of how a young woman should behave? You do not understand, do you? If it had been some other less-admired daughter, then perhaps this might have blown over, might have dissipated into the forgotten. But for all your adult life you have been lauded for manners and comportment. Lillian Davenport says this! Lillian Davenport does that! Such a stance has made you enemies in those who have not been so admired and they are talking now, Daughter, and talking loudly.’

She stayed silent.

‘Nay, we will pack up the townhouse and retire to Fairley. At least there we can regroup. Jean, Patrick and Daniel will of course accompany us with the Christmas season almost here.’

Lillian’s heart sank anew.

‘And then we will see what the lay of the land is and make our new plans. Perhaps we could have a trip somewhere.’

So he would not abandon her after all. She laid her fingers across his.

‘Thank you, Father.’

He drew her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it, a gesture she had not seen him perform since before her mother had left and the small loyalty of it pierced her heart.

When he was gone she pulled out a drawer in her writing desk and found a sheet of paper. She could not just leave such a silence between her and John and Eleanor Wilcox-Rice. With a shaking hand she began to apologise for all the hurt that she had caused them; when she had finished she placed the elegant gold-and-diamond ring in its box next to the note, pushing back relief. She would have it delivered in the morning. At least in the vortex of all that was wrong she was free of this one pretence.

Lucas Clairmont was gone. Back to America, perhaps, on a ship now heading for home? He had not contacted her, had not in any way tried to make right the situation between them.

Ruined for nothing!

The mantra tripped around and around in her head, a solemn and constant reminder of how narrow the confines of propriety were, and how completely one was punished should no heed be taken of convention.

Lord, she could barely believe that this was now the situation she would be in…for ever? Even the maid bustling into the room failed to meet her eyes, stiff criticism apparent in each movement.

Lunch that afternoon was a silent drawn-out affair, each person skirting around the disaster with particular carefulness.

Her youngest cousin Patrick was unexpectedly the one who remained the kindest, setting out all his faux pas across the years with an unrivalled honesty.

‘It is an unfair world, Lillian, when women are disadvantaged for the actions of a cad. If Luc Clairmont should walk through this door right now, I would bash his head in.’

‘Please, Patrick.’ Jean’s protests fell on deaf ears.

‘And then I would demand retribution, though God knows in what form that might take, given his light purse-’

‘I think your mother would prefer to hear no more.’ Her father’s voice was authoritative and Patrick stopped, the loud tick of the clock in the corner the one sound in the room.

‘The Countess of Horsham’s good opinion that no American is to be trusted has come to pass,’ her aunt continued after a few moments. She lifted her kerchief and wiped at her watering eyes. ‘And now we shall have no trip to Paris. For the wedding gown,’ she qualified, noticing the puzzlement of the others.

‘I should think that the lack of a shopping excursion is the least of our worries,’ Ernest said, waiting as the servant behind reached over to remove his empty plate. ‘But if we are to have any hope of weathering this disaster, we also need to put what is past behind us and move on.’

‘How?’ Jean returned quickly. ‘How is it that we should do that?’

‘By the simple process of never mentioning Lucas Clairmont’s name again.’

Her aunt was quick to agree and Patrick followed suit. ‘And you, Lillian?’ her father said as he saw her muteness. ‘How do you feel about the matter?’

‘I should like to forget it, too,’ she answered knowing that in a million years she would never do so, his pointed lack of contact a decided rejection of everything she had hoped for.

But as the days had mounted and the condemnation had blossomed, even amongst those who had no reason to be unkind, anger had crawled out from underneath hurt.

Why had he followed her into the dim privacy of the alcove if all he meant to do was leave her? Surely his actions had not been that mercenary?

Lilly. The way he had said her name, threaded with the emotion of a man whose control was gone, and whose touch had burnt the fetters off years of restraint, leaving her vulnerable. Exposed.

Her father’s voice interrupted her reveries.

‘We will leave for Fairley in the morning and shut the house here until the end of January. Some of the servants will stay to complete the process before they come on to us. If we are lucky this…incident may not have filtered out to the country and perhaps we may even entertain on a smaller scale. I hope, Patrick, that you in particular will not find the sojourn too quiet.’

Lillian gritted her teeth, though she was hardly in a position to remind her father of her own need for some company. The winter stretched out in an interminable distance: Christmas, New Year, Twelfth Night and Epiphany. All celebrations that she would no longer be a part of, her newly purchased gowns hanging in the wardrobe for no reason.

As the terrible reality of her situation hit her anew she pushed back her plate and asked to be excused. The eyes of her family slid away from her agitation, another sign of all that she had cost them in her error, for the invitations that had once strewn the trays were now dried up, and the few that pertained to a time in the future cancelled by yet another missive.

Her entire family had become personae non gratae and she had not stepped a foot outside the house in all of five days. Even the windows overlooking the park had been out of bounds-she often saw curious folk looking up and pointing.

Poor Lillian Davenport. Ruined.

Suddenly she could not care. She could not hide for ever. She was twenty-five, after all, and hardly a woman who had been caught in flagrant déshabillé.

Pulling on her heavy winter coat, her hat and her gloves, she called for the maid and the carriage to be ready to leave.

‘I am not certain that the master-’ The girl stopped when she noticed her expression. ‘Right away, miss.’

Within the hour she was at her modiste trying on a dress she had ordered many weeks ago and Madame Berenger, the dressmaker, was polite enough not to ask anything personal, preferring instead to dwell on the fit and the form of the gown.

‘It is beautiful on you, Miss Davenport. I like the back particularly with the low swathe across the bodice.’

Turning to the mirror, Lillian pretended more interest in the dress than she felt because a group of women she recognised had entered the shop.

An awkward silence ensued and then a whispering.

‘It is her.’

‘Has she seen us?’

Lillian tried not to react, though the hands of the modiste had stopped pinning the hem as though waiting for what might occur next.

‘Perhaps now is not a good time to be here.’ Christine Greenley spoke loudly, but the young assistant who had rushed to attend to the new arrivals assured her that there were seamstresses ready to help them.

‘That may very well be the case, but will Miss Davenport be here long?’ Lady Susan Fraser was not so polite. ‘I should not wish to have to speak to her.’

No more pretence as silence reigned, the sound of a pin falling on to the wooden floor louder than it had any need to be.

Lillian thanked the woman kneeling before her and picked up the skirt of her gown so that she would not harm the fragile needlework. ‘Please do not leave on my account, Lady Fraser, for I have finished.’ The walking distance seemed a long one to the welcomed privacy of the curtains in the fitting room, her ingrained manners even giving her the wherewithal to smile.

Behind the velvet curtains her hands shook so much that she could barely remove the garment; when she looked at herself in the mirror it was like seeing a stranger, eyes large from the weight she had lost in the past week and dark shadows on her cheeks. Taking three deep breaths, she prayed for strength, her maid’s shy call on the other side of the curtain heartening her further.

‘Can I help with the stays, Miss Davenport?’ she queried, her face full of worry when Lillian bade her enter and her fingers were gentle as she pulled the boned corset into position and did up the laces.

When they came from the room the group was still there however, the oldest lady stepping into her path as she tried to leave.

‘I am sorry for your plight, Miss Davenport.’

Her plight. Just what was she to say to that?

‘Thank you.’ Her words were a ludicrous parody of good manners. Ever the gracious lady even in ruin!

‘But at twenty-five you really ought to have known better.’

‘Indeed I should have.’ Another inanity.

‘If I could offer you some advice, I would say to go to Wilcox-Rice cap in hand and beg his forgiveness! With a little luck and lots of genuine apology, perhaps this situation could be remedied to the benefit of all those involved.’

‘Perhaps it may.’

Perhaps you should mind your own business. Perhaps you should know that your son has propositioned me many a time in a rude and improper manner.

Layers.

Of truth. One on top of the other and all depending on the one beneath it.

And Luc Clairmont. What was his truth? she wondered, as she walked out on to the pavement, carefully avoiding meeting the eyes of anyone else before entering the waiting carriage and glad to be simply going home.

Lucas awoke to the sound of water, the deepness of ocean waves, the hollow echo of sea against timber and wind behind canvas sails. He was in the hull of a ship! Trying to swallow, he found he could not, his mouth so dried out that it made movement impossible.

An older man sat on the table opposite watching him.

‘Ye are thirsty no doubt?’

Luc was relieved when the fellow stood and gave him a drink. Brackish water with a slight taste of something on the edge of it! When he lifted his hands to try to keep on drinking, he was pleased that his captors had not thought to bind him. The rattle of chains, however, dimmed that thought as he saw heavy manacles locked on his ankles.

‘Where are we?’ His voice was rough, but at least now he could speak.

‘My orders were ye are not to be told anything.’

Luc attempted to glean from his fob watch some idea of the time, but the silver sphere was gone. Gone, like his boots and his jacket and cravat. Glancing across at a porthole at the far end of the cabin, he knew it to be still dark.

A few hours since they had taken him? Or a whole day? He had no way of determining any of it. His head ached like the devil.

‘You hail from Scotland?’ He tried to make the question as neutral as he possibly could, tried to get the man talking, for in silence he knew he would learn nothing at all.

‘Edinburgh, and before that Inverness.’

‘I’d always meant to go north, but never did. Many say it to be a very beautiful land.’

‘Aye, that it is. After all this-’ he gestured around him ‘-I mean to go back, to live, ye understand.’

‘If you help me off this ship, I could give you enough money to buy your own land.’

The other frowned. ‘Ye are rich, then?’

‘Very.’

The Scotsman eyed him carefully as if weighing up his options, the pulse in his throat quickening with each and every passing second. The sly look of uncertainty was encouraging.

‘Are you a good judge of men?’ Luc’s question was softly asked.

‘I like to think I am that, aye.’

‘Then if I told you I am an innocent man who has done nothing wrong at all, would you believe me?’

The answer was measured.

‘Any murderer could plead innocence should his life depend on it, but I’ve yet to see a man brought to this ship in the middle of the night who has not walked on the shady side of the law.’

Luc smiled. ‘I would not expect you to do anything more than to look away for five minutes after unlocking these chains.’ He gestured to the manacles at his ankles.

‘I’d be a dead man if I did that.’

‘Throw them overboard after me, then, and say that I jumped in.’

‘Only a fool would attempt to swim while bound.’

‘A fool or a desperate man?’

Silence filled the small cabin.

‘When?’ One small word imbued with so much promise!

Luc answered with a question of his own. ‘Where are we headed?’

‘Down to Lisbon.’

‘Through the Bay of Biscay?’

‘We have already sailed through those waters and have now turned south.’

‘The warmer currents, then, off the coast of Portugal? If I jumped, I’d have a chance.’

‘And my money?’ The thread of greed was welcomed.

‘Will be left at the Bank of England in Thread-needle Street, London, under my name.’

‘Which is?’

‘Clairmont. Lucas Clairmont. You could claim it when you are next back in England and then leave the ship for your hometown.’

‘If ye die during this mad escape, I cannae see much in it for me.’

‘Go to Lord Stephen Hawkhurst and tell him the story.’ Luc pulled his wife’s ring from his finger and placed it on the ground in front of him, the gold solid and weighty in the slanting shaft of light from the porthole. ‘I swear on the grave of my grandmother that he will pay you five hundred pounds for your trouble, no matter what happens to me.’

When a cascade of expletives followed Luc knew that he had him. Still, there was more that he might be able to learn.

‘Who brought me on to this ship?’

‘Three fellows who paid the captain for your passage. There was some talk of a woman who wanted ye gone from England if memory serves me well.’

Closing his eyes against the stare of the other, he tried to focus and re-gather his strength whilst thanking the James River for its lessons in swimming from one wide edge of it to the other.

Not Davenport money, he hoped. Not Lillian regretting her intimacy in the alcove at the Billinghurst ball, a dangerous stranger who would be menacing to her? A few pounds and an easy handover! No, for the very life of him he could not see Lillian ever performing an illegal act no matter what duress she might be under. Her aunt Jean, then? Lord, that made a lot more sense. Perhaps he was on the same ship she had bought a passage on for him, though he knew the paper in his pocket to be gone.

Already the man had brought the key from the table and unlocked the manacles. The chains fell limply around his ankles as he stood, towering over his shorter captor.

‘What usually happens to those you take on the ship under the cover of darkness?’

‘At a rough guess I’d say Lisbon would be the last place they ever saw in this life.’

The choice was made. Luc stripped off his shirt and tied it about his waist. He wished he could have picked up the wooden chair near the table and dashed it to pieces, taking the largest piece as ballast. But he did not dare to, for fear the noise would attract others who would not be as willing to barter.

‘How do I leave the ship?’

‘If you follow me, I will show you, but be quiet mind.’ Lifting the chains, the Scotsman muffled their sound in the folds of his jacket as Luc followed him out into the darkness.